SFFWorld News

1) Vin Diesel will return as night-vision SF tough guy Riddick in the third movie of the Chronicles of Riddick franchise for Universal Pictures. The film will be written and directed by David Twohy, who wrote and directed the first two films, Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick. The franchise also spawned a hit videogame series and animated video The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury. The new film will be produced through One Race Films, Diesel’s production company, and Radar Films.

2) Author J.K. Rowling has been named with her publisher in yet another British law suit for copyright infringement by the estate of the late author Adrian Jacobs, based in Australia. The suit claims the fourth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, published in 2000 from Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, copied substantial parts of Jacobs’ 1987 novel The Adventures of Willy the Wizard – No. 1 Livid Land, specifically concerning the idea of a wizarding contest. Bloomsbury has stated that the author’s estate first contacted them in 2004 but was unable to identify any text in the Harry Potter books that was copied from Willy the Wizard, a series of which Rowling claims to have had no knowledge previous to the lawsuit. Previous infringement lawsuits of the Harry Potter books have been dismissed.

3) Dean Koontz’ re-imagining of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the novel Prodigal Son, written with Kevin J. Anderson, will be adapted into a film. The novel focuses on two modern-day New Orleans detective on the trail of a serial killer known as The Surgeon. This attracts the interest of the monster Deucalion, who suspects the killings are the handiwork of his creator, and who fights to stop the madness before an army of engineered undead give New Orleans a new disaster. Producers Ralph Winter, Terry Botwick and 1019 Entertainment are developing the project.

4) The CW network in the States will launch a new t.v. series, Betwixt, based on the novel by Tara Bray Smith. The novel concerns three Oregon teenagers who attend a secret rave party in the woods that instead releases an arcane ritual that reveals their true identities as changelings and drops them in the middle of an other-worldly conflict.

5) The SyFy Channel in the States has announced a release date, April 18, for its new Riverworld miniseries, based on the SF books by Philip Jose Farmer. The mini-series, which might become a regular show, was adapted for this version by Robert Hewitt Wolfe, and stars Tahmoh Penikett and Laura Vandervoort among others.

8) Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,) will be taking on pulp superhero Doc Savage for film, directing and co-writing the screenplay with Anthony Bagarozzi and Chuck Mondry. Doc Savage, an inventor, explorer and crimefighter known as The Man of Bronze, was featured in Doc Savage Magazine from 1933 to 1949.

9) Both show creator Eric Kripke and stars Jensen Ackles and Jared Padelecki toyed with bringing the t.v. fantasy series Supernatural, on the CW network in the States, to a close at the end of its fifth season, but the actors’ contracts ran six seasons and the response to the fifth season’s apocalypse plotline has been so strong that CW has given an early pick-up nod for season six. Kripke and co-show-runner Robert Singer will move to executive producer duties while Sera Gamble, a long time producer and writer with the show, will become the chief show runner. The sixth season about the struggles of the Winchester brothers in a world of ghosts and demons will contain a new storyline, rather than continue the apocalypse plot, which will come to a finale in May.